Pincers
Pincers (also known as jaws or claws) are the name given to a type of gripping weapon found in Robot Wars. They usually consist of a pair of blades designed to apply force to two sides in order to pinch, cut or grip robots. A favoured weapon of the House Robots (with Growler, Sergeant Bash, Sir Killalot and Mr Psycho all using them for most of their careers), the weapon first appeared on Series 3 Semi-Finalist Pitbull in the form of jaws; the slicing pincers debuted later on in the same series with Agent Orange. The original General Carnage had smaller claws mounted on extended arms. Dual pincers first appeared in basic form on the original Judge Shred. Aside from Pitbull, Chompalot and Crushtacean/Krab-Bot have enjoyed reasonable success with this form of weapon. Definition Pincers are a type of weapon that rely on crushing or gripping from two sides simultaneously. They take their name from the tool, which used mechanical advantage to apply pressure to two blunt concave jaws arranged like the blades of scissors, used for gripping and pulling objects. Most pincers were designed to grip opponents, although a few were designed to pierce through them as well. In Robot Wars, pincers can take many form and are often called jaws or claws rather than pincers, where they are designed to resemble mouths or hands respectively. Jaws in particular can vary in length, width and operation - some such as the weapon of Pitbull were better suited for grabbing, whilst others such as Chompalot's were designed with crushing in mind. Advantages and Disadvantages Advantages *Depending on the design, a set of pincers can be designed to double as another weapon type, such as a lifting weapon. Lambsy and S.M.I.D.S.Y. are notable examples. *Pincers can often display effective weapons synergy with lifters or overhead weapons, as demonstrated in the designs of Agent Orange, General Carnage and Judge Shred. Lambsy was able to incorporate a pneumatic spike into its jaws, and Draven combined its jaw with a lifting mechanism which also enabled it to potentially self-right. *Pincers have enormous grip strength. In the Series 3 Semi-Final battle between Pitbull and Fire Storm, the former was able to continue holding onto Fire Storm despite being bounced by an arena spike. *Pincers can be incorporated into an invertible design, as demonstrated by S.M.I.D.S.Y, Lambsy and General Chompsalot. *Pincers are designed to target the underside of other robots, often considered to be their most vulnerable part. They can often cause considerable damage to the underside, or even lift opponents off the floor as a result. Chompalot achieved the latter in its Extreme 2 Iron Maidens final against Pussycat, with Crushtacean later replicating the feat with Cerberus. *Pincers can be especially effective in damaging or destroying narrow components, for example beams, weapon arms and aerials. The various versions of Sir Killalot's jaws achieved this on numerous occasions, often snapping entire components in half, such as the axle for Dreadnaut's lifting forks in Series 2, Iron-Awe's axe in Series 4 and Gabriel 2's mace in Series 10. Additionally, Crushtacean immobilised Mr Nasty in Series 6 by slicing its aerial off with its claws. *House Robots equipped with pincers also possessed unique benefits with their usage of said weapons. For example, Sir Killalot and Mr Psycho could use their much larger arm-mounted jaws/claws to hold competitors high off the floor, carry them around and even dump them out of the arena. *Pincers, like other crushers, can prevent another robot from using its weapon, although not to as much of an extent as vertical crushers. This was best demonstrated in Chompalot's Head to Head in Series 8, where it managed to prevent Gabriel from using its torque reaction weapon to damage Chompalot. Disadvantages discusses the limited attack range of Draven's jaw]] *Pincers have a very limited attack range as a result of their narrow width, which makes them one of the most difficult to position effectively for an attack. **Pincers which were combined with lifting mechanisms could prove especially easy to avoid as a result of their aforementioned characteristics. General Carnage's Series 3 fight against Behemoth especially demonstrated this shortcoming. *As they are thin, pincers can easily be broken or bent out of shape by rotating weapons. Crushtacean's claws in particular were broken by Supernova's disc during their battle in the Third World Championship, as was Draven's jaw following attacks from PP3D in Series 9. *Gripping pincers such as the jaws of General Chompsalot are not usually designed to cause damage, making it very difficult for robots equipped with these weapons to score damage points in the event of a Judges' decision. List of Robots with Pincers Robots are listed alphabetically. Robots which are not heavyweight entries are listed with a green background. House Robots are listed with a yellow background. Robots equipped with gripping jaws are listed in bold. Category:Weapon Types Category:Robots with Pincers